Though he started out in advertising in Manhattan, Eric Monkaba has always had a bit of wanderlust. While vacationing in Morocco a few years back, Monkaba shared a taxi in the High Atlas Mountains with a few British tour managers who opened his eyes to a different career path. Soon enough he was leading tours through the deserts of Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. After studying Arabic at the University of Damascus and a stint working with street children in Yemen, he started Backpacker Concierge, a personalized travel consultancy specializing in responsible tourism in the Middle East, mainly in Egypt and Jordan.

Age: 30

Home base: Cairo

Music venue:Makan in downtown Cairo showcases the best in traditional sounds on the verge of extinction.

Souvenirs: I like Fair Trade Egypt because they source local products from all of the country — leather products from Marsa Alam, textiles from the Delta and Middle Egypt, and intricate Bedouin designs from the Sinai.

Restaurants: For Egyptian home cooking, Al Sit Hosneya (011-20-23-338-6007) in Cairo serves up the best food, especially during Ramadan. It’s a complete meat fest so I make sure to go on an empty stomach. If I am traveling near the Libyan border, I stop at Albabinshal (011-20-46-1499) in the remote Siwa Oasis. They serve fresh, locally grown food that I can never get enough of.

A typical outing: I’m really into our Garbage City program in Cairo. Cairo’s “Garbage City” in the district of Menashayat Nasr is a predominantly Coptic Christian enclave. People survive on garbage trade and recyling trash into new products. Our half-day program will take you through the local monasteries, churches and garbage here. You will learn about garbage, the controversies surrounding it and how it is recycled to produce new products. For every 24 visitors this program receives, we will build a bio-gas digester for the local community center or a private home.

Best spot for a local getaway: Locals and expats alike enjoy beautiful Al Azhar Park. Once a landfill in the middle of the city, now it is the Central Park of Cairo — a great place for picnics, sunbathing (with your clothes on, naturally) and evening concerts.

Hidden gems: The Gulf of Aqaba coastline is still relatively hidden and is lined with small beach camps from Dahab all the way to the Israeli border. Some of the more established beach camps, like Basata, aim to be eco-friendly and I hope more outfits go that way. I also love the Lake Nasser region between Aswan and the Sudanese border. The area is so unbelievably undeveloped when you consider 11 million tourists a year come to Egypt.